Imagine you found an advertisement in the newspaper offering a position with a one sentence application process.

Would you take it?

What if it was for a position where you would learn a proprietary trading system in which you would trade solely for owner of the firm?

What if that man was Richard Dennis?

Our next guest took that position in 1983 and it changed his life forever, for the better. He found himself with what was to become a famous title, a Turtle. He was given the opportunity to manage a million dollar account with specific rules to follow. Rules that he would learn to love and perfect.

Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the first part of this world exclusive conversation with the most successful Turtle of all times, Jerry Parker.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

About the Turtles and how the unique experiment grew into the Managed Futures/CTA Industry

How Wall Street Leaks inspired Jerry into understanding the industry

How Jerry encountered trend following for the first time

The One Sentence culture in Richard J. Dennis’s office

“The Turtle program was so amazing because our client understood trading unlike most clients and actually created those systems. He created the Turtles.”

How to excel at unprecedented tests from leading traders

What it was like moving to Chicago to train as a Turtle

What the Turtle training was like and the mindset provided in the training

The most challenging thing about Trend Following when Jerry started with Richard Dennis

“I probably trade the original system philosophy as much as humanly possible”

About the transition from Turtle Trading to starting his own organization, Chesapeake Capital in 1998

The evolution of Chesapeake’s strategy from day one after leaving Richard Dennis’s program

The early focus on diversification and adding new markets

Issues with trying to improve the original Richard Dennis

The shift in investor expectations with the growth of institutional investment organizations while operating on of the largest CTA firms in the industry

Why it’s best to take an optimal loss rather than a small loss

On the meaningfulness of track records and what else investors should be encouraged to explore when choosing an investment management decision

“Typical Rich (Richard Dennis) he was just very understanding and he just knew how to motivate people. He was a very kind person.”

The advertisement Jerry responded to in 1983:

Richard J. Dennis and CD commodities is accepting applications for the position of Commodity Future Trader to expand his established group of traders. Mr. Dennis and his associate will train a small group of applicants in his proprietary trading concepts. Successful candidates will then trade solely for Mr. Dennis. They will not be allowed to trade futures for themselves or others. Traders will be paid a percentage of their trading profits and will be allowed a small draw. Prior experience will be considered, but is not necessary. Applicants should send a brief resume with one sentence giving their reason for applying.

Resources & Links Mentioned in this Episode:

“I would change in a heartbeat if I could improve, but I just haven’t seen anything better than what we were taught. Especially given the fact that I’m always going to error on the side of robust systems, being conservative and not trying to do things to my systems that would weaken their reliability.”

Sponsored by Swiss Financial Services and Saxo Bank:

Connect with Chesapeake Capital:

“Bad ideas can work for a long period of time. That’s one of the things that Rich told us. If you lose 50% of your money, then you get fired. But he said, ‘I’m going to look at all of this based upon how well you’re following the rules. If you’re making money but not following the rules, you’re also going to be fired. If you’re losing money and you’re following the rules, then that might be ok.’ That’s sort of the problem with evaluating traders with a small sample size. Bad ideas can seem to work. Any idea that cuts your profit short in the trend following space, eventually is not going to work very well.”

As Featured In…

iTunes Reviews

Absolute Gold

03/23/2019What do you get when you put a Dane, a German and an American in one show? Only the absolute greatest investment podcast out there. I can’t even begin to express how much I love The Systematic Investor portion of TTU, and of how much I’ve learned from these three great minds. Thank you for doing this podcast.

by Trucker JohnZ from United States

Good insights!

03/17/2019The team provides excellent insights into the world of trend following.

by London Millennial from United Kingdom

Incredible Insight!

03/09/2019Great podcast. As a private Investor / Trader- listening to professionals give advice and encouragement is absolutley priceless. Trying to beat the market, and the large institutionals, with the talent they employ, is difficult, and when you do, you question how long it will last. But as a trend follower- listening to Niels, Moritz and Jerry, gives me the "suppport" group that I need to keep plugging away during draw downs. Keep it up, and thank you! ORT!

by Occams_Razor_Trader from United States

Review

02/14/2019Best episode yet!! Keep up the great work.

by Trickill from United States

Great podcast

02/05/2019I recently started listening to the podcast. This is excellent. If you enjoy investing podcasts, or are interested in trend following / alternative investments you will probably like this.

by Otis7#pp from United States

The BEST systematic/trend following resource

01/28/2019Are you seeking information and transparency? Do you value simplicity and honesty? Do you want to learn about risk and money management? Are you interested in alternative investment strategies and long-term capital growth? You will learn this and much more with this podcast through the lens of trend following and systematic investing. Start with episode 1 back in 2014 and work your way through. It’s impossible you won’t learn something useful and applicable.

by SamGoBlue from United States

Mission

The goal of Top Traders Unplugged is to democratize the hedge fund industry, by providing easy access to the most successful managers and traders while simultaneously giving small and emerging managers a chance to be heard.